out the entire stack of dishes. “That’s what everybody wants. You just don’t know what will make you happy.”
Kira grimaced. “Is that weird?”
Nandita shook her head kindly. “Happiness is the most natural thing in the world when you have it, and the slowest, strangest, most impossible thing when you don’t.” She set out the dishes and started sorting through the herbs, separating them into groups and tearing off leaves and branches for the bowls. The scent of crushed mint filled the kitchen. “It’s like learning a foreign language: You can think about the words all you want, but you’ll never be able to speak it until you suck up your courage and say them out loud.”
“What if you say them and they’re wrong?”
“Then you’ve probably just asked the waiter for a bowl of library elephants,” said Nandita, “or whatever the metaphorical equivalent of that would be. I can’t carry these analogies very far, I get mixed up.”
“Too bad,” said Kira, picking up a handful of rosemary and breaking off pale green twigs for the bowl. “I was hoping you’d just keep going: happiness, love, the whole . . . purpose of life, I guess.”
“Whose life?”
“What do you mean?”
“Each life has a different purpose, and some people can find their purpose more easily than others. The key,” she said, turning to Kira and gesturing firmly with a sprig of cilantro, “the most important thing you can ever know, is that whatever your purpose is, that’s not your only choice.”
“Huh?”
“No matter why you’re here, no matter why any of us are here, you’re never tied down to fate. You’re never locked in. You make your own choices, Kira, and you can’t let anyone ever take that away from you.”
“Okay,” said Kira. “That’s not really where I was expecting this conversation to go.”
“That’s because I make my own choices, too,” said Nandita, picking up her basket. She still had nearly half the herbs unsorted. “I’m taking these to the neighbors; Armand is sick. You go and get cleaned up—I want my house to smell like basil, not teenage armpits.”
“Done,” said Kira, and ran upstairs. The music was louder up here, the usual assortment of screeching, booming, yelling music that Xochi always chose when she was alone. Kira smiled, then smelled herself, grimaced, and went straight to the shower.
On the very small list of benefits to the end of the world, at or very near the top, was clothes. Long Island had once held nearly eight million people, with the shopping malls and department stores and fashion meccas necessary to clothe them all. The Break had reduced that population to a tiny fraction, and obliterated the economic system in the process, leaving all those clothes pretty much free for the taking. It was horrible, Kira knew, and the survivors lived their lives in a brutal mix of hard work and desperation and fear. But they were very well dressed.
Many of the clothes on the island were too shabby to wear—too moldy, or too moth-eaten, or too faded from exposure—but a lot of them were still good, even today. “Shopping” was as simple as combing through an empty store or neighborhood, finding something that fit, and giving it a good wash to get rid of the bugs and the smell. Storage rooms and warehouses were the best. There the clothes were sealed in boxes instead of loose to the world, and Kira had spent many of her weekends with her friends, picking through ruined strip malls in search of a Twenty-Two or a Threadless or some little boutique that no one else had found yet. Nandita’s girls had an entire room filled with every kind of outfit they could imagine, from baggy sweats to slinky dresses and everything in between. Kira chose something that showed off her legs—might as well have some fun after two days of near-death experience—and went to say hi to Xochi.
Xochi Kessler had moved into their house soon after Madison left it; Xochi had just turned sixteen and couldn’t wait to escape from her “mother.” She’d brought with her four banks of solar panels—her adopted mother was rich, if nothing else—enough to run lights, an electric stove, even a toaster if she wanted it, but instead every ounce of juice those panels brought in went straight to Xochi’s music system. Music was practically Xochi’s life. Kira had met her years ago while shopping, Kira for clothes and Xochi for digital music players. They were palm-size tablets of metal and plastic and glass, on which their former owners had stored hour after hour of every kind of music imaginable. Xochi had collected nearly a hundred of them.
Xochi waved as Kira stepped into the doorway. “Give it up for Kira, mighty hero of the infamous Asharoken salvage run! You are rocking those shorts, girl.”
Kira grinned and waved back. “When one has legs like mine,” she said airily, twirling on one foot, “one has a responsibility to display them. For the little people.”
“Is that an Irish joke?” asked Xochi, frowning in mock solemnity. “I certainly hope so.” Senator Erin Kessler was a proud Irish woman, and thus Xochi had been adopted and raised in an aggressively Irish home. Her actual heritage was more southwestern, Mexican or even Aztec, but that hadn’t stopped the senator from forceful cultural indoctrination. When Xochi got mad, she even slipped into an Irish brogue. Kira thought it was hilarious.
“I don’t mean leprechauns, I mean commoners,” said Kira. “It was a peasant joke, but I guess it’s not funny unless you imagine that I’m actually a princess.”
“I’m totally a princess,” said Xochi, “and I dare anyone to prove otherwise.”
“Princess of what?” asked Xochi. “Lincoln Avenue?”
“My parents were the rulers of a vast, exotic empire,” said Xochi, waving her fingers mysteriously. “Or at least, since nobody knows who they were, they might as well have been.”
“What are you planning for the party this Friday?” Nandita was a good cook, but Xochi was an excellent one, and always provided the food for special occasions.
“Roast chicken, fried potatoes, and doughnuts if I can get the flour for them. Sweet rice is good, but for the love of all that’s holy, I want some effing chocolate.”
“Chocolate doughnuts?” asked Kira, whistling appreciatively. “Who died and made you senator?”
“Unfortunately, not my mother,” said Xochi. She jumped up, heading for the door. “I found a guy in the market yesterday who swore he had some wheat flour. Want to come?”
“These legs aren’t doing the little people any good locked up in here,” said Kira, standing with a flourish. “The people need to see their princesses.”
It was Friday. Rebuilding Day.
Time for a party.
There were no births on Friday, and no fevered babies to monitor, so Kira came home exhausted but ready to enjoy herself without feeling guilty. She bathed, brushed out her hair, and chose a bright-colored outfit from her “flirty” section: a silk shirt with Chinese embroidery, a pair of high-heeled sandals, and a pair of jeans just short enough that she paused to worry about the weather. It was summer, but a cold one, and another rainstorm could really make her wish she’d gone with something heavier. She mulled over the decision, comparing the jeans with a longer pair, and finally decided to go with the shorts. They looked better with the shirt, and better on her, and she needed the boost. She could risk cold legs to feel like a normal person again for a while.
